Loria felt a thrill and flushed with wicked pleasure. It was time for the kill. She needed her cousin at the slough for maximum effect, and walking her there would be impossible if she ate or drank anything more. Tayva looked unfit to sit up, much less walk to her doom.
"Let's look on the water one last time," Loria cajoled. "Tomorrow we'll be gone and never see it again. We should say good-bye, after all."
Tayva nodded in blurry agreement and rose unsteadily. Loria rose and tottered to the door with feigned drunkenness. She had never acted so well.
The two women weaved and bumped down the path to the slough. Loria felt her gorge rise as they passed the dovecot and the stench of the decomposing pigeons. Tayva actually leaned against the stone wall and breathed deeply. Loria feared that her cousin might stop there, but Tayva collected herself and continued to the dark water.
The darkness of the night gathered in the foul water, and Loria worried that Tayva would become suspicious. The pair were moving slower and slower, and Tayva looked more focused and intent by the minute. Loria stopped to concentrate on the upcoming sacrifice, to commune with the spirit in the water but felt lightheaded and feverish with impatience. She could feel the stench streaming off the slough. The spirit was ready for the sacrifice. This was the moment of decision.
Loria lurched forward to push her cousin into the evil morass. She wailed in rage as she lost her footing and tumbled to the ground instead.
"This is no time for mistakes! Kill her!" she muttered angrily to herself.
Loria tried to push herself upright, but her arms wouldn't hold her, and she smacked into the ground. Her cry of anger turned to a ghastly moan as she spewed blood over the muddy bank of the slough.
Tayva straightened, and her eyes flashed in the dimming light. She stood over Loria, smiling, watching her companion cough up her life.
"Do you feel ill, Cousin?" she asked snidely. "I thought I ate all the poison." She laughed hard.
Loria spasmed as if punched.
"Do you think me as stupid as our victims? I knew you would try to kill me." Tayva chuckled and kicked her cousin in the side.
Loria convulsed briefly, and a fresh gout of blood trickled toward the water.
"The pigeons brought back more than news. They brought plague! One of them rolled in a corpse and brought it back. Contaminating the food was simple, a little dollop of power, and some of the live birds were infected. I nearly laughed when you were so careful to keep your food separate from mine." Tayva turned to the slough and breathed the fetid air deeply in preparation for her dark communion. She couldn't resist one more taunt.
"How did I avoid the poison? I swallowed it all. I just took care to swallow the last of the oil from the dovecot. It coated my stomach and intestines. Everything I ate is neutralized or will just pass through." Tayva looked at the water and saw the blood vanish below the surface. She could feel dark waves of evil flowing up the stream of blood to her cousin's body. Loria writhed weakly and died.
"Time to finish the sacrifice," Tayva gloated and stepped into the water.
"Yes, " whispered the spirit, and the surface broke in front of her.
It was Winton, and the water had not been kind. Withered eyes looked to her and flesh peeled off in great strips as he moved toward her. Tayva shrieked and turned to run. The water and mud gripped her legs, and her progress slowed as she moved to the shore, but she still had the strength and speed to outrun a dead man.
Tayva raced past her dead cousin, but Winton cast his bolas as he had a thousand times in life, and she fell hard. The bolas wrapped her legs, and she dragged herself forward with her hands, tearing them on the stony ground. She couldn't catch her breath and curled up in pain. She glanced back and saw Winton bending over Loria, his rotting hands tangled in Loria's blue dress as he dragged her into the shallows.
Even as she caught her breath she still crawled, moving toward the hut for a knife to free herself. By the time she reached the dovecot her legs were burning with such pain that she could only thrust her body into the dark interior in a futile attempt to hide.
She lay alone with the plague-ridden bodies of birds. She had killed everything in the ceremony to corrupt the pigeons she fed to Loria. Tayva touched her legs and cried out as she felt the barbs and jagged edges on the bolas that tied her limbs. She could smell her legs putrefying as poison and disease from the slough devoured her. She would never escape now.
Tayva wept. All the cousins had done and said was heard by something else. Their plans to leave were understood by what had escaped Ebnezzer's skull. The spirit of the water decided two sacrifices would serve it better.
Tayva clasped her hands to her head and tried to shut out reality. But even through her moans of pain she could hear unsteady footsteps. Winton's possessed and rotting body wove up the path. She tried to remember the prayers against the dead, but prayers were lost to her. She cursed the spirit, Loria, and herself as the door creaked open. Tayva remembered all the pigeons she had drowned over the years and shuddered as Winton began to drag her to the slough.
Blue
Blue, sometimes called the color of distinction, is characterized by calm hands and a reflective mind. A natural sedative, blue is the color of deliberation and introspection, conservatism and acceptance. Blue has almost universal appeal and is considered to be the most aesthetically appealing color. Blue is the color of respect and wisdom. But, those who lean toward blue sometimes use reason for selfish and self-justified purposes. It is the color of control and passive aggression as well as the color of the sea and the sky. Blue is for those contemplative people who exercise caution in words and actions and for those who always weigh the options.
Expeditions to the End of the World
Red-faced and burly, Captain Crucias mingled among his noble passengers. Though he wore his best jacket-a black waistcoat with gold buttons and red Jamuraan appointments-he felt clumsy and common among these folk.
They sat like porcelain dolls all around him, poised on the iron settees he had bolted to the ship's deck. Most were enduring the week-long sea journey with Argivian aplomb-which meant complaints about cabin size, food quality, chantey lyrics, salt spray, fish smells, strong winds, daytime glare, nighttime murk, and full-time nausea. On this particular voyage, the high priestess of dissatisfaction was Madame Gheiri, more implacable and discontent than the sea itself. She took up a whole settee, around her arrayed the accoutrements of her discomfort-book, bumbershoot, shawl, crackers, and tepid tea. Her white silk camise and gray cashmere gown were complemented by a pudgy face in light green.
Crucias approached. "Are you feeling better today, my dear?"
"Must the ship bounce and sway so much?" she asked testily, her eyes like twin red daggers in the morning sun.
Crucias gave an apologetic smile and gestured expansively to the bright ocean all around. "The sea has waves, Madame Gheiri… "
"I'm not talking about the sea, " she gasped, clutching an ill-used handkerchief to her lips before drawing the strength to continue. "I'm talking about the ship. Can't you control your own ship? You have all these ropes and sails and anchors and things. Surely you could use them to smooth the ride. "
"We'll be reaching Argoth this afternoon, Madame. Then we'll anchor for the show, and your stomach will have a chance to settle, " Crucias said soothingly.
"My niece Elgia is so ill, she couldn't get up from her bunk this morning. She was hoping to meet a husband on this-this displeasure excursion!" she snapped. "But no young men… seven days of monotony… seven nights of seasickness! I tell you, there had better be some impressive explosions and definite signs of death and mayhem on the island, or I'll make my own cataclysmic battle right here!"